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The Texas Rangers have a long and checkered history. In 1823 by Stephan F. Austin hired ten men to protect the frontier, but the Rangers weren’t formerly constituted until 1835. The Texas Rangers are the oldest law enforcement agency in the United States and have gone through many transformations through the years.

I’m on the last draft of the third book in my Haywire Brides
series. My male protagonist is a Texas Ranger and, as some of you might have
guessed, that’s my favorite type of hero.

Men worked as
volunteers until after the Civil War and were disbanded as needed. Some served
for days and others for many months. Companies were called various names
including mounted gunmen, mounted volunteers, minutemen, spies, scouts and
mounted rifle companies. It wasn’t until 1870 that the term Texas
Rangers came into use.

Maintaining law and order on the frontier wasn’t easy, but
those early Texas Rangers still managed to move with quick speed, even over
long distances, and were able to settle trouble on the spot. They were called
upon to serve as infantrymen, border guards, and investigators. They tracked down cattle rustlers and helped
settle labor disputes. They both fought
and protected the Indians.

Being a Texas Ranger didn’t come cheap. He was expected to provide his own horse and
it had to be equipped with saddle, blanket and bridle. A Ranger also had to provide his own
weaponry, which included rifle, pistol and knife. He would also carry a blanket, and cloth
wallet for salt and ammunition. To
alleviate thirst, a ranger would suck on sweetened or spiced parched corn. Dried meat, tobacco and rope were also
considered necessities. What he didn’t carry with him was provided by the land.

As for clothing, a Texas Ranger wore what he had. It wasn’t until the Rangers became full-time
professional lawmen in the 1890s that many started wearing suits. (Today, Rangers are expected to wear
conservative western attire, including western boots and hat, dress shirt and
appropriate pants.)

Those early Rangers received twenty-five dollars a month in
pay and worked hard for it. An officer’s pay was seventy-five dollars. A man
seldom lasted more than three or six months in the job.

In the
early days, frontier justice did not require a courtroom, and Rangers fought
according to their own rules. Rangers learned to strike hard and fast. This led to many excesses of brutality and
injustice. The Rangers were reformed
by a resolution of the Legislature in 1919, which instituted a citizen
complaint system.

Today, the Texas Rangers enjoy a stellar reputation,
and recently did something that probably has legendary Rangers Tom Horn and Big
Foot Wallace a-whirling in their graves; they recently hired women